


Rings of Grass

by Beauteousmajesty



Series: On discovery [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Genderfluid Character, Grief, History, M/M, Marriage, Mourning, None of my Nordics are cishet, Paganism, Plague, There’s only sex if you understand Shakespearean metaphor, Vikings, Witch Trials, pre-reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 21:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20803148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beauteousmajesty/pseuds/Beauteousmajesty
Summary: Two thousand years is a long time for anything, let alone a marriage. The wedding vows for a Christian marriage are in no way a checklist, but Denmark and Norway have done them all.





	Rings of Grass

**Author's Note:**

> It’s another long historical one. I know the history doesn’t agree with Finland’s part, but they’re just remembering differently. We’ve got unreliable narrators, definitely.
> 
> I’m not saying knowing lots of things about hamlet is required for this one, but it makes the jokes better (not really).
> 
> Fair warning I’ve not seen any of the canon and I don’t intend to.

Every summer, when butterflies fly above Danish meadows and the sea sparkles beyond the sand, Norway remembers. Denmark is particularly beautiful in early summer, and nostalgia renders his landscapes perfect to Norway’s eyes.

They’re sat down by a brook in Helsingør, enjoying the shade of a willow tree. They brought a picnic there, which is now long eaten, so Norway rests back against his husband and watches the butterflies flit above the meadow grass, as Denmark deftly weaves a crown of grass and flowers with bored hands.

It could be any year. This is how they live their best moments, distancing themselves from the racing and relentless passing of their people and immersing themselves in the lasting presence of their flowing streams and beaches, mountains and fjords, forests and meadows, and watching the migrations of the birds from year to year.

Their nature has changed indescribably through the years, but it changes at a slower pace than fleeting human lifetimes. They watch their people burn out like candles, but this stream still flows. Even if the people they once knew in the castle at Helsingør are long gone, the water remains.

There’s something wonderful about a moment like this one, Norway thinks. The afternoon is fleeting, they have a train to catch to get back home, and he will have to cross the Øresund and travel home through Sweden soon. This looming future is held off, however, by the peace of this moment, and the way its timelessness makes it feel like it could last forever.

Sometimes, looking down, he is shocked to find himself not wearing the massive skirts of a reformation era gown, like he once wore here. This Danish brook has hosted them for centuries, and Danish nature even longer.

One of Norway’s earliest memories is Denmark’s joyful laugh ringing through long grass, as they played chase, running through their wildernesses, Denmark tempering his pace to account for the smaller nation’s littler legs. Norway remembers that Denmark always thought of the best games, leading their little Scandinavian trio in games when Sweden joined them. Denmark’s childhood laugh echoes through most of Norway’s early memories, still high and giggly, sometimes turning into hiccuping when something was too funny for him to cope with.

This loud, happy, laughing child is the Denmark who stands at the forefront of Norway’s childhood memories. There are other Denmarks in his memory too, though. There is the concerned face of the Denmark who’d stop to help Norway up when he tripped and fell, dusting away the mud from grazed palms, imitating human adults with their children, and trying to kiss Norway’s injuries better. There was the Denmark who’d fight with Sweden before taking himself off to sulk and maybe cry a little.

Denmark had always been an excellent sulker. He’d take himself off after a fight, find a secluded spot, and wallow. The trick to cheering him up, which Norway discovered through repetitive trial and error, was to distract him enough from his sulk that he’d forget the reason for it in the first place.

They spent years picking each other back up after falls and fights, gentle hands brushing away mud and misery throughout their long childhoods. They ran together, with hands joined so that they wouldn’t lose each other when running at speed, racing through Norwegian forests and along Danish beaches. They ran between human settlements, watching and learning with their people as they made new discoveries.

Norway worked with his people to carve long boats with skilled fingers, strengthened enough with age to carve with a finesse that Denmark would never achieve. Denmark learned to farm, growing crops on his expanses of arable land, with an accessibility that Norway’s terrain denied him.

These developments aged them, and they hit puberty together as a pile of awkward gangly limbs. Norway spends a few years taller than Denmark and gloats accordingly at his best friend. They keep sharing a bedding pile wherever they are for companionship as well as warmth, and so they learn to deal together with weird dreams and blood as their bodies grow around them and country matters become more of a reality than a concept.

They keep running and playing, even though Norway can now see a laughing Denmark over the long grass that had once concealed him completely. Denmark no longer has to slow his pace, they can run together through the years and watch their settlements grow.

Their settlements evolve slowly into the basic infrastructure of nationhood, and adulthood beckons, and with it comes a call to adventure. Norway’s ships are ready to take them to sea, to see the world, alongside a human crew. One day they will look back and call themselves vikings.

They see their humans marry in elaborate rituals to honour their love and bonds between them, forming strong family alliances. One night, when then are drunk on marriage ale, and sat in the grass by a roaring bonfire, Denmark proposes his idea to Norway.

He slumps himself into the once again smaller nation, who reacts with an intoxicated giggle, before he mumbles something into Norway’s ear that Norway barely understands, picking out only a few words like ‘us’, ‘think’, and ‘you’, which gives Norway very little to go off.

Drunk Norway is convinced that all of Denmark’s ideas are brilliant so agrees to whatever it is, regardless, before they retreat to sleep. Waking up hungover, they both have some idea that something important was decided the night before, but for the life of them neither of them can remember what it was, but they disregard it in favour of breakfast and hiding from the sunlight.

It is only around a month later that Denmark remembers, as he watches a bright young groom go on a ritual tomb raid in preparation for his marriage. He remembers that he asked Norway if he’d like to be married, and the other had said yes.

He spends the afternoon sat, thinking out a plan to pitch to Nor. He remembers that they have no ancestors, so there’ll be no ancestral swords available to exchange with rings, there’ll be no families to gather, no dowry to be given. The best he can think up is bathing, hair braiding, rings, and feasting. If they followed ritual, their ceremony would be a poor one, as far as Denmark can see, as he sits on the rolling hillside and watches over the grazing sheep.

Eventually Norway comes and finds him, as Norway is wont to do when Denmark is in a mood. As he settles himself on the grass beside Denmark, he plucks himself a handful to throw at him. They enjoy a moment of silence before Denmark launches into his ideas without any preamble whatsoever, posing different ideas for Norway to think about without a single pause between them.

Norway waits for him to finish talking, which he does in a questioning tone, as if he expects Norway to have a measured response to whatever he’s just said. Norway’s response, ‘hva?’ is not exactly measured, but it certainly conveys his confusion.

Denmark realises, as he often does when Norway is confused, that he’s leapt in with stage five of a plan and given Norway no context to go off.

He tries again, carefully this time, thinking through his words before he says them, watching Norway closely to see how he reacts as he explains his chain of thought.

‘You see that boy, Nor?’ He asks, pointing down at the young man returning victorious with a sword purloined from an ancestral grave. Norway nods as his eyes follow the human as he passes them by.

‘What of him?’ Norway responds, unsure about where this is going.

‘I was thinking-‘

‘Be careful with that, you might hurt yourself’. The joke is old and only performed out of habit at this point.

‘Yeah. Well, I was thinking that he’s got ancestors to get a sword from, and neither of us have, and that we’ve got no family to bring together, and any wedding we had would be without most of the things that make a wedding.’

Norway takes a second to think before he responds, mulling over Denmark’s words with care, before asking, ‘Wait. Wait. Wait, are you proposing to me?’

So Norway doesn’t remember that conversation at Brunhilde’s wedding a month ago. Ok. Denmark can deal with that. He guesses that asking now is slightly more romantic that it was when he asked blind drunk. Norway now has another opportunity to reject him, and Denmark feels his heart rise into his throat as he merely nods in reply, suddenly too anxious to find the right words to say.

Norway sits quietly for a moment, contemplating Denmark. Considering. Norway often considers plans a little more when sober, and Denmark feels like he’s being scrutinised as Norway looks at him in consideration.

For a moment, the only sound audible is the sound of the long rustling grass as Norway sits and considers. He plucks a strand to fiddle with as he eyes Denmark over, face betraying nothing of his thoughts. Denmark watches him with sickening anticipation, as Norway sits and thinks and fiddles, before he nods and offers Denmark his piece of grass, which he has woven into a ring.

The ring is one strand thick and has bits of stalk sticking out, but Denmark slides it onto his finger like it’s made of the finest gold before reaching for his own bit of grass to make a ring for Norway.

They’re not human. They can’t offer each other the same things humans can offer each other. They can’t share a home or promise each other that their peoples won’t have disputes. They have no families to celebrate with or to learn from. Denmark can do something that his humans can’t do, however, and as he takes Norway in his arms as they sit on the hillside he promises to love Norway ‘irrevocably and forever’, and he truly means it. Forever is something he can give. They have exceeded the lives of their humans by centuries, they have played together as their humans have blinked past them, and as far as Denmark understands, they have forever.

Norway smiles at him and nods in response. ‘Irrevocably and forever,’ he replies. It sounded right, sounded unbreakable, a promise, a vow of sorts. For them, it’s enough, it’s a marriage. They’ll do some of the other parts of the ritual later; Norway will find himself a symbol of Thor to wear and they’ll drink together and give each other swords.

As the following years pass, they take Nor’s boats to sea, finding little islands as they go. When the grass rings break they are replaced, Norway carves a band of elaborate knot-work from a piece of storm fallen wood from a willow beside a brook near what would one day be Helsingør. Denmark fights a tournament for its prize, claiming a ring for Norway alongside a number of cuts and slashes. One cut, above his eyebrow, scars despite Norway’s best efforts to heal it. Norway tells him he’s an idiot for doing it, but he’s proud of Denmark all the same.

It’s one of the first stories he tells to his baby brother when he discovers his island, even if the child is too young to understand what Norway is saying. After making sure that Iceland’s new inhabitants are likely to survive, Norway sails his new brother home to meet Denmark. Denmark loves Iceland from the moment he sets eyes on the bundle in Norway’s arms, delighted to have a new family member.

Iceland becomes a staple of their home, demanding a lot of both of their time. Having a child to look after pushes them from where they stood at the brink of adulthood, firmly into adulthood itself. One evening, as Norway is trying to coax Iceland to sleep in front of the fire, telling stories of Freya and Thor and other things he’s picked up from their humans, Denmark suggests that as they now have family to gather they could fill in a few more requirements for a wedding ritual.

Norway allows himself to be persuaded, and when the spring comes and they sail again, the first of their children comes to meet them. Grønland, Færøyene, and Vinland come with the regularity of human children, in quick succession year by year.

With them they are happy, so happy. The children laugh and play together, and they’re a lot of work but Denmark and Norway are used to hard work. They spend days just playing and learning and they are so tired but it’s worth it. But then the winter months come and Vinland doesn’t make it.

Vinland was always their smallest child, the one who fell behind when the others ran. The one who returned to them crying with grazed knees most often, as the other two and Iceland ran off ahead. Vinland was their littlest one, always their baby. Denmark let Vinland lick the spoon the most when he was cooking, to the little nation’s delight. Vinland had been the one most interested in Norway’s garden, willing to stop and listen to the names of the plants as Norway dug in the dirt, just tall enough to reach up to Norway’s waist.

Vinland was their happiest child, born with Denmark’s giggle, most glad only when with another family member. Norway remembers nothing but good things about Vinland and his heart aches as he remembers how Vinland sickened as the leaves fell, getting weaker and weaker despite their best efforts. Norway remembers how Vinland cried when sickness rendered running with the others impossible, and watching them from afar the only option.

Norway remembers a lap full of Vinland as he’d tried to distract the crying child with the brightest lights and prettiest shapes he could summon, and Denmark telling story after story. But the nights grew longer, and Vinland began to fade, soon appearing as translucent as one of Norway’s apparitions, quieter, ghostly, and then one morning, gone.

They searched and searched but Vinland was gone, burned out like an oil lamp in the wind. There was no body to bury, no cairn to build. Just emptiness where their child had once been, and the worst thing of all was that Norway can’t remember Vinland’s face, and it feels like it’s ripping him in two as the other children cling closer to him and he tries to commit their faces to memory. Denmark has the same problem, so he starts to paint them, to make a record, just in case.

They don’t go back to Vinland. There’s no going back. Vinland, their littlest child, who wanted to be friends with the other nations who lived nearby, was gone. They can’t face sailing back beyond Greenland. Norway doesn’t talk for a month after Vinland goes, carrying out family life like a puppet, a shell of the parent he’d been before. Denmark talks more afterwards, telling stories of Vinland to people they meet. He begins to forget, to confuse himself as time goes on, the stories he tells begin to vary and the Vinland sagas become confused and his paintings become more blurred.

Norway hates to hear them, the sagas and songs of Vinland, that ring through halls they visit. He cannot grieve as he once would have as his new Christianity forces him to new rituals, to fend off new evils of afterlife and sin. He seizes the rituals and follows them, for their structure rather than any faith in them. He cries in secret and holds his family close.

The marriage rituals have changed so Denmark and Norway meet each other at the church door and make new vows, as they now know for sure that they cannot promise each other ‘irrevocably and forever’. They promise each other support and comfort before this new God, and they reconcile after months of distance.

They are careful with the children after Vinland, and pay frequent visits to their homelands to keep homesickness at bay. When Greenland and Faeroes celebrate their first century, they move to living half with their parents and half in their own lands to keep them healthy. Distance is a killer for young nations, and homesickness is not a fun thing to deal with, more violent for a nation than just a human emotion.

Norway teaches survival skills to all of the children in his care, finding it easy to mix his brother up with his children. He teaches runes and basic magic and other things that his king says he’s not allowed to know. Denmark teaches them too, leading them in group cooking sessions in an attempt to avoid them developing Nor’s love of fermenting things that aren’t alcoholic. He fails, but Norway decides that he can’t be faulted for trying after Iceland develops a recipe for fermented poisonous shark.

The children grow, slowly but surely over the years. Færøyene falls in love with Norway’s jewellery box, helping to pick out her favourite sparkly things for when Norway has to do official things. It’s fun, rummaging through cold metal and jewels together. Each broach and necklace has a story that goes with it, whether it be a gift from a neighbouring nation or an offering from Denmark. Norway teaches Færøyene about the messages each piece she picks convey and they try to create joke messages with her choices.

He is dressed in finery that Færøyene has picked out when he meets with Sweden formally for the first time. His kings have started keeping him closer. He lives in court rather than on adventures and Denmark is harder to reach. Formality has changed his interactions with Sweden as they treat each other as rival adults rather than childhood playmates. As the cold metal that his daughter has picked out for him shines, he feels Sweden truly see him as an adult for the first time.

The Sweden he once knew feels distant from this new, adult Sweden. There is a tension in the air. Denmark and Sweden’s fights have been getting slightly worse, nothing serious, but worse than the small spats of childhood. Sweden knows that Norway is closer to Denmark, but not how close. He doesn’t know about the children, or about Iceland. Norway feels his court mask slip in place, and builds a wall with his words to keep Sweden away from them. He doesn’t trust the way that Sweden is looking at him.

Norway knows how to play games at court, to keep himself hidden, to keep himself safe. He can become the perfect courtier if he tries, sliding into the role of noble lady or advising Lord, waiting by his kings’ ears and his queens’ sides. One of his kings took his head just after Færøyene was born and now he is loyal, watching his steps before his kings.

Norway is a diplomat. He entertains Sweden at feasting, he watches what he says. Each word they utter is now politically loaded, each casual remark could be taken as a call to war. Norway is careful as he plays his cards. They make small talk. Dangerous small talk, about boats and empires, conquest and death. Norway deflects away from dangerous questions. He’s decided on secrets, and he will keep them.

They talk and they feast, and Sweden looks at Norway oddly. It’s like he’s going to say something but he’s holding back. Norway is tense, Fær’s finery feels heavy draped around his neck. They’re not children anymore. Sweden reaches for his hand and kisses it goodbye, then he’s gone and Norway doesn’t know what to do.

He misses Denmark. He has Is, Grøn and Fær with him at the moment, but they’re not the same as Dan. They’re just children. He gathers them close to him as they sleep, soothing Fær back to sleep when she wakes, crying for her lost sibling, calming Is from a nightmare.

He sleeps late and wakes early, moving to put porridge on without waking the children, starting his daily routine, missing Denmark all the while. He is packing a case for Grøn, he’s going home today, back over the sea. The other two will follow in the coming weeks, and Norway will be alone again.

He will miss them, and worry for them. Instead of soothing them at night he will have to make do with knitting for them or carving them gifts, and waiting for their letters to sail their way back to him. He will be lonely once they are gone, known by only his king.

He watches his children sail away from him, one by one, as he stands alone at the dock, watching boats sail beyond the horizon. He’s not allowed to cry. His kings want him to look strong, shows of weakness are to be avoided, so he walks home dry eyed, obedient.

His obedience is of no matter when he returns, his people fallen into war with themselves over his king, batting him back and forth between figureheads. He doesn’t know who to back, so he does nothing. Rival factions claim him and claim the throne before being disposed and he falls into the hands of another. Civil war is dizzying and so he stops watching, he lets them claim him and shuts his eyes to their conflict.

He opens his eyes again when he feels something in Bergen, a sickening, a darkening. He sends word by raven to his children’s islands to shut the ports, something’s coming, and that’s the last thing he can do before the sickness takes him.

The sickness spreads from Bergen like wildfires at midsummer, Norway feels it rush through his veins. Already weakened by his people’s warring, he succumbs. He hears nothing from Denmark. His people run out of gravediggers, out of people equipped to give the funeral rites, out of hope. He abandons his court and roams his land, giving each body he comes across rites and a grave.

He works his hands bloody digging grave after grave as he buries an entire village, working alone. He cares not for his kings’ commands and allows himself to weep for them. He chants rites from every faith he’s ever known. He is caught in a haze of plague, leaning heavy on his shovel as he walks.

He wakes one morning encased in fresh soil, side by side with a rotting corpse. The rot sank into his flesh months ago, he looks beyond dead. He cannot let the sickness take him as it took Vinland, so he claws his way from his grave, legs too weak to stand, and crawls his way to a port. If he is dying, he will die at Denmark’s side.

The sailors he convinces to take him south throw him overboard one night, convinced he’s dead and he washes, battered by the sea onto Denmark’s shore. Dan’s beaches have become his tombs, Norway crawls past funeral after funeral as he follows familiar roads, passing by fields of long grass where they once played, long grown fallow with neglect.

He collapses at Dan’s doorstep, too weak to knock. Denmark finds him there when he returns from a funeral, slumped and fading. It’s the first he’s heard from Norway in months. Norway only realises he’s fading as Denmark’s hands slide through his own as he reaches out for him.

He remembers only darkness after that. Only a long cold darkness, full of dark dreams and the sound of Denmark crying.

He wakes a year later, once the sickness has passed. Denmark is still by his side, and he touches Norway like he’s made of glass, reverent and tearful as Norway opens his eyes. They’re unified now, all of them under the same Queen. Sweden thinks Norway’s tidying up some business in one of his far flung reaches, and that’s why he hasn’t declared his fealty to their new queen yet.

Norway can see his sickness has weighed heavy on Denmark, who sports dark circles under his eyes from doing work enough for both of them, and caring for him and the children as well as Iceland, and working to keep Sweden in the dark about Norway’s condition. Once Norway can sit up, he demands that Denmark brings him work he can do to share the load.

He spends the next ten years in bed, reading missives from a Sweden who thinks he’s thousands of miles away, and responding as such. Denmark spends all the time he can in their bedroom, patting Norway to check he’s still there. Norway gets bored and irritable stuck in bed, and he and Denmark have snippy fights, Denmark being continually riled up by Sweden’s constant presence.

It’s a relief when Sweden finally goes away to explore his eastern borders and Norway can have his official ‘arrival’ at court. He kneels before his new queen and pledges his allegiance to Denmark, irrevocably and forever. Færøyene picked out the finery for him, all Danish, all shining. He hates it for the first time. He misses his forests and the simplicity of his rural folk, he misses the openness he can wear away from court.

He can’t leave now, though, he’s been ‘away’ for so long, and Denmark now seems to lack object permanence where Norway is concerned. So he dresses as a lady of the court and sits at Denmark’s side for feasts, glittering with Danish jewels hung on chains that weigh him down.

Dan has fine seamstresses and weavers to make him clothes as a show of his wealth, and Norway wonders what has happened to the laughing boy he once knew. Denmark is high on power, and part of Norway is afraid of him. He catches himself still hiding behind a courtly shield even when they are in private, keeping secrets from even Denmark.

When Sweden returns, he and Denmark clash again and again. Their fights echo down the corridors and Norway pulls the skittish looking teenage nation that Sweden has brought home with him into his quarters, into safety.

Sweden calls the boy Finland, and its months before the teen speaks up and tells Norway his name is actually Suomi, by which point the name that Sweden assigned has stuck around court.

Finland follows Norway around, which Denmark thinks is funny. Norway doesn’t mind, his new friend somewhat makes up for Denmark being a git. He and Denmark only fight in private, away from their unified public front. Norway thinks that having power over Sweden is driving Denmark mad, and he’s somewhat relived when Sweden leaves, dragging Finland with him.

The wars that follow are violent. Both Denmark and Sweden do awful things to each other. Norway sometimes gets caught in the crossfire as they fight over bits of his land.

Norway is forced to once more pledge his allegiance to Denmark, politically unifying with him into one kingdom. They become Denmark-Norway, fully married, fully unified, irrevocably and forever. They come back together once Sweden leaves, unified by their shared anger at his actions.

They win wars and they lose them. Norway stays at home, and works for both of them whilst Denmark rides out with their army. It’s hard, waiting alone at court, most of Denmark’s wounds have already scarred by the time he returns home.

Some of Denmark’s wounds are too big for Norway to heal without scarring, like the massive scar he gains between his collar bones. Norway knocks himself out for a week after trying to knit Denmark’s flesh back together correctly with magic after the stake his husband had been impaled on was removed.

The wars are rough. When they lose, food runs scarce and Norway knows hunger. Jan Mayen comes as a surprise, an unexpected child in a time of deep hunger, six hundred years after the loss of Vinland. Norway’s not ready for another child, but they welcome Jan Mayen with open arms, making space in their busy lives for a baby.

Jan Mayen is born already fading, she doesn’t live longer than a week. Losing her wrecks Norway more than the hunger, he goes silent again. Denmark doesn’t have time to paint her before she is lost, there is no time for songs, for sagas. They are Protestant now, they cannot believe in purgatory. Their priests say their daughter is either in heaven or hell and there’s nothing they can do.

Norway sequesters himself and prays to every god he knows, even though he assumes it will achieve nothing. He has to do something. Denmark throws himself back into fighting Sweden, and loses and loses and loses. They give up region after region and so Norway travels north to see what remains on his land.

He takes Iceland with him, for company, and they travel slowly, surveying once familiar towns and villages. They stop in Vardø for a winter, Norway spends time working as a midwife for the local people, happy to ignore the church’s current argument that all women should suffer for the sin of Eve.

Norway is an excellent midwife, he keeps excellent time and he has a way of pain relief that makes for recommendation between expecting mothers. Then the church steps in. The Vardø witch trials are the largest that Norway has ever seen. Nobody is safe. He sees women he’s helped taken, and small children ripped from the streets.

Explaining to Iceland what he has to do is potentially one of the hardest things he’s ever done. He’s giving himself up. He’s the only witch they’ll ever catch, the only one guilty. Iceland has to run, to hide in the forest and not listen or feel for Norway. Norway or Denmark will find him.

He sends a letter to Denmark and gets himself caught. It’s terrifying. He doesn’t like to remember any of what happened. Denmark finds him afterwards, and nurses his burns as his body repairs itself. Iceland refuses to sleep alone for months. He’d ignored Norway’s instructions and come running for his brother when he’d felt him burn, only to be able to do nothing but watch from the tree line.

Their children return to them for the summer and then they’re all together, a family. Norway builds up his strength by teaching Iceland to fence, before letting Denmark teach once he’s remembered why he hates swords (far too much effort).

They go for picnics and then watch their children play in the long grass once they’ve finished, listening to the laughter ringing through the softly waving stems. Denmark laughs too and Norway is hit with a rush of love for him, his Denmark is back. He hums to himself as he picks a strand of grass and grins at Denmark before weaving it into a new ring. Denmark slides it on, delighted, next to his wedding ring, now an ornate jewelled band to go with the fashion, before making one for Norway.

For the moment, all the sorrow of their past is washed away and they are sat once more on a hillside watching a young man with a sword. Their family gathers around them, and they all go home together. Norway feels like he could glow with happiness as they reconvene in front of the fire and Denmark tells stories.

Svalbard doesn’t come as a surprise, but they are more wary about preparing after Jan Mayen. Svalbard is tiny, but definitely solid. They take turns holding their baby close as the months pass and the child stays with them. Winter comes and they wait with bated breath, keeping Svalbard sleeping in their bed with them. Their northernmost child seems to hibernate for the winter, but doesn’t fade. Each day of winter is a new joy for them and their two older children are very much taken with their younger sibling.

They are a family. Denmark stops going with his army to war, they spend the days laughing and playing as spring comes and Svalbard wakes up.

They have ten years of joy. Ten years. For them it’s the blink of an eye. Then another war starts with an invasion of Copenhagen. Little do they know it’s their last war together.

‘It’ll be over soon’ is what Norway tells the children at night. ‘It’ll be over soon, and then we can all be together again.’

But they lose, and the treasury is empty, and Sweden wants Norway as his prize. Norway takes a breath and declares independence, leaving all the children but Svalbard with Denmark, even Iceland. He gets no international support, there’s a blockade built between him and Denmark, keeping food from his people.

Sweden wins the war, and they sign a treaty. Denmark has to sign away any claim over Norway ‘irrevocably and forever’, and Norway unifies with Sweden.

Living with Sweden is cold and lonely. Sweden doesn’t speak up for Norway when Norway isn’t allowed to speak, like Denmark would. Svalbard is back up north, for safety, and Norway can only sneak away every so often. Sweden is in charge of external communication, so Norway gets no news other than rumours about Denmark trying to give himself to Prussia.

Norway lives in his court mask for ninety one years, becoming Sweden’s perfect wife. Hosting events that let him gather state secrets surreptitiously to pass on to his newly formed Storting.

When his government writes its way to freedom, Norway moves to a cobweb filled house in Christiania, thrilled to be rid of Stockholm.

Denmark gives him a prince to be king, and Norway sends him a personal invite to the coronation. There’s room in his new house for his whole family and so they come, and Norway cries all over each of them. He’s lost his wedding ring so Denmark has found one in white gold, as he’d rightly assumed Norway is fed up with yellow.

They spend years doing diplomatic visits and renegotiating how to be married without living together. They remain neutral for as much as they can, Norway doesn’t have the economy for war.

Iceland takes his first steps towards independence and Norway is so proud of him, even if he has grown into a particularly stroppy teenager. He sees Finland when he goes to see his brother at home, and his little friend has grown up too.

Finland is the first Nation to learn about their family. Norway trusts him, Svalbard is still so small, but Finland loves Norway’s smallest child. In 1920, it’s officially decided that Svalbard is part of Norway, and he’s so glad not to lose his baby.

As the rest of the turbulent twentieth century passes, their two elder children gain more autonomy within the kingdom of Denmark and bodily age a little. Grøn ends up taller than Norway, which Norway is not too impressed about, but he can live with it.

They fell into their current arrangement in the mid eighties, traveling up and down between nations each weekend. It’s easier to visit the children as well, and they can get to museums they haven’t visited in years.

Sweden finds out about their marriage and their children when the new millennium rolls around and they celebrate it with a joint thousand (ish) birthday party for both their elder children and a celebration of almost two hundred years for Svalbard. As it’s New Years, they decide to invite Sweden because it’s about time they tried to make friends.

It becomes a whole Nordic affair, and Denmark takes pictures on a large collection of disposable cameras. For one night Norway feels as happy and as peaceful as he had when they played together as children.

Sweden doesn’t take the reveal of their marriage and children too badly, Norway thinks. Although it does surprise Norway himself that they’ve been married for almost two thousand years.

They drink in the new millennium with a toast to friendship, and Norway means to keep it.

Norway opens his eyes, and blinks against the brightness of the afternoon sun. Denmark is putting the finishing touches to his flower crown, weaving daisies into the ring of grass he’s created. Norway has a feeling that when Denmark’s done, he’s going to end up being given a new hat.

He reaches into the grass to pluck a long enough bit to make something for Denmark in exchange for his hat, before turning his thoughts once more to his reflections and twisting the grass stem into a ring, stalk sticking out and ugly, like their first rings. He rubs the band of white gold that still wraps around his finger and smiles before turning to give Denmark his ring with a kiss.

They have weathered their storms, and now they sit in the sun. Even if everything else seems uncertain, they have each other, irrevocably and forever. They’re ready for whatever their futures bring because they can face it together, no matter what.

**Author's Note:**

> If you ask I will explain things (hamlet).


End file.
